After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb. 2 Look, there was a great earthquake, for an angel from the Lord came down from heaven. Coming to the stone, he rolled it away and sat on it. 3 Now his face was like lightning and his clothes as white as snow. 4 The guards were so terrified of him that they shook with fear and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Don’t be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He isn’t here, because he’s been raised from the dead, just as he said. Come, see the place where they laid him. 7 Now hurry, go and tell his disciples, ‘He’s been raised from the dead. He’s going on ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there.’ I’ve given the message to you.”
8 With great fear and excitement, they hurried away from the tomb and ran to tell his disciples. 9 But Jesus met them and greeted them. They came and grabbed his feet and worshipped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Go and tell my brothers that I am going into Galilee. They will see me there.” (Common English Bible)
Easter “Sunrise” (at 8:00 am!) 2021
The closest I have had to a nerve-wracking experience of going to Galilee was when I was in Israel in the summer of 2010 to participate in an archaeological dig (spoiler alert: it is nothing like what Indiana Jones does). I have a slight bit of background in art history, having taken several classes in college on art history and classical art and architecture, and my archaeology professor had asked me to give a short talk on the art and architecture of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, southwest of the Sea of Galilee, to my fellow students—on twenty-four hours’ notice. No problem.
That was my nerve-wracking experience going to Galilee. Nothing close as the tensions the citizens of Israel and Palestine face today, and certainly nothing close to the tension the followers of Jesus had to be experiencing in the forty-eight or so hours following His crucifixion.
The female disciples of Jesus have just experienced a profound trauma—witnessing the execution of their Messiah—and they are meant to take it on faith that this same Messiah is no longer dead but living, and has already gone ahead of them to Galilee—which, it is worth keeping in mind, is on the opposite side of Israel. Jerusalem is in the south, Galilee the north.
Go now, to the other side of the country, and the Son of God will meet you there. Three days after you watched him be executed.
We will talk about this even more at the 10:30 worship, but I hope you can understand and empathize with the women’s fear there. And yet, go forth they indeed do.
We have been asked to plunge forward into the future after—while still, really—experiencing a profound, year-plus-long trauma together. After witnessing death together—of hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans, of millions of fellow humans.
And in the face of such death, we are called to believe still in the possibility of resurrection. We are called forth to venture onward from the tomb to Galilee, to Emmaus, to the ends of the world with our faith that may have been shaken, may have been rattled, but that still remains living within us.
So on road we walk, together, into what lies in store next—hopefully, soon, a return to in-person worship. Later, an in-person celebration of Valley’s seventieth anniversary and our sanctuary’s sixtieth anniversary. And along the way, offering ourselves as a family of faith to others who are in need of such a community in which to grow, mature, ask big questions, and find tangible answers.
The person who needs a church not to spoon-feed them answers but to equip them to seek God’s will for themselves? We will meet them along the road to Galilee. Will we be a home for them?
The family that needs a church where they know that their child will be loved for who they are, at each stage of their development? We will meet them along the road to Galilee. Will we be a home for them as well?
And the person who comes to us bearing scars from any number of additional traumas, not just the pandemic—abuse, or addiction, or being targeted for racism or sexism or queerphobia? We will meet them along the road to Galilee. Will we be a home for them too?
The road before us is not one any spiritual GPS device can lead us on. We have had to come up with a whole new playbook, a whole new atlas, these past thirteen months, and it should emphasize to us that paint-by-numbers Christianity simply will not do. To meet our neighbors where they are at, we must be able and willing, enthusiastic even, to be a church which is open to the renewal and newness that those who darken our doorway for the first time will bring.
They may bring their questions, their burdens, their longings and desires, and in all that, they will also bring resurrection. In meeting them with our faith, its depth and its richness, so will we.
That is the destination along this road. That is Galilee—to meet one another in resurrection. That is Emmaus—to meet one another in the breaking of bread of new life.
That is being the church, the resurrected Body of Christ in this world. That is living out Easter Sunday on each Sunday. Imagine Easter Sunday every Sunday—that is a church to live for.
As our neighbors venture out of their homes on their own post-Easter road to Galilee, or to Emmaus, may we strive to be their Galilee, their Emmaus, the place to which they can journey, knowing that when they arrive, they can experience new life in God as revealed through Jesus Christ.
This Easter, as we prepare to hopefully return to in-person worship for the first time in over a year, after having sacrificed so much in that time, may we do so intending for each of those Sundays to be an Easter Sunday for us. May we be an Easter church, and a resurrection people, to our community.
By the grace of God, may it be so. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Eric Atcheson
Birmingham, Alabama
April 4, 2021